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NEW SCHEMATICS - Discussion Thread


NQ-Nyota

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Regardless of server load/balancing issues being uses as an excuse for changes, the main problem still remains.

There is hardly any fun way to make quanta in this game. Everything is a chore. Mining is a chore, missions is a chore, industry has been turned into a chore.. and so on. So unlike when grinding in other MMO's, there is no sense of achievement or progression. Just mindless tedium repeating the same tasks over and over. And that is just bad game design, no matter how you look at it.

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image.png.9a3031378dea42cbcce3fd03c9e38187.png

 

This display of time needs to change. It's a ROUNDED value, so sometimes you can add/remove runs without changing the time. Make it stop rounding, preferably client time and date when the run is finished.

I have a lot of stuff that I want to say about this change, but Deckard has straight up said, that if we only say negative things, we will just be ignored. I'm sorry that I do not see any redeeming qualities in this update. Apparently that makes my opinion null and void.

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1 hour ago, Mncdk1 said:

Deckard has straight up said, that if we only say negative things, we will just be ignored

 

NQ needs to grow up if they want to be treated like professionals. 🤷‍♂️

 

Are they really this unprofessional and insecure? 

 

This whole "you need to provide 'balanced' feedback" demand is something I've never heard from a business before, but NQ isn't shy about saying it (more than once). 

 

NQ wants to make their own customers the problem -- we're the ones at fault for not praising their efforts enough. We're "toxic" for complaining. For "not telling them what we like" about their recent choices, implying there's got to be something they are doing right and we're the ones that can't acknowledge their great work. 

 

It's because of their own actions and utter lack of engagement that people don't care to indulge their egos and flatter them with misplaced praise...but yet again, NQ is complaining about a situation they created with years and years of incompetence and neglect.

 

We'd be a lot more keen on actually being 'balanced' if they cared to spend even a few minutes answering basic questions like how long their paid beta will have persistence before being wiped. 

 

No worries, though...NQ doesn't like hearing from paying customers, that's fine! That's a problem that will solve itself in a few months. 

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I usually just say NQ and refrain from referring to any specific person.

But this time I think it is warranted to say that Decard's statement has been proven very effective, at killing the game.

And if the majority of comments are negative, that by itself is VERY much a data point that should NOT be ignored.

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2 hours ago, blundertwink said:

This whole "you need to provide 'balanced' feedback" demand is something I've never heard from a business before

 

Balanced feedback is important because the devs need to be able to distinguish which particular things the playerbase enjoys/appreciates vs dislikes/laments. This however becomes very difficult when feedback is unspecific and/or one-sided. Simply put, if you only point out the positives then the devs wont know what needs improvement just like if you only point out the negatives the devs wont know which parts need to be emphasized. If there is absolutely nothing you like/hate about this update then it is fine to state as much, but at the very least try to be specific about exactly why you feel that way.

 

My thoughts

 

I personally do not enjoy industry gameplay because I find it rather mundane and repetitive. I do however understand that many others enjoy it and that this change is significant for them. From a macroscopic perspective I believe this change makes sense and @TobiwanKenobi already did an good job outlining why and so I don't really have anything more to add at this time.

 

Quick Summary

 

I have read through this entire thread and these are the main issues players have identified thus far, roughly in order of popularity.

  1. Its tedious to have to constantly refill schematics copies on industry units.
  2. This places a soft limit on how many things a single player can produce at once.
    • Thereby placing an emphasis on group play or using alt accounts to further production goals
    • Thereby creating a relatively stagnant endgame for industry players (Note: conflicts with "the factory must grow" mentality)
  3. The justification for this change is not clear enough and the intended outcome is difficult to comprehend
  4. Schematic prices/copy-times do not align with current production rates and will lead to price corrections.
  5. Lore wise, this change implies that Aphelia has substantial control over Noveans whereas an emphasis on self-autonomy is preferred. Additionally the nanocrafter not requiring schematics could use some elaboration.
  6. Generic schematics based on element tiers feels different and there are some conceptual size discrepancies like large detectors that add confusion.

If you would like to help contribute to the discussion, consider commenting about how you feel about the above points, offer suggestions on how to address them, or identify additional areas of concern with respect to schematics. Please try to be productive and stay on topic. Cheers!

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After having played around with this a bit, the changes feel very .. off

 

It feels like this wil actually benefit small scale DIY style industry, something NQ claimed it's supposed to "prevent". The way this is balanced is completely not geared towards having industry being specialised and intended to drive the economy/markets. It is pretty much "spend a few days 'researching' schematics and then build your own stuff anyway"

I also do not buy the reasoning NQ gives us that this is because people were complaining about the changes made in 0.23 as NQ already addressed that by overcompensating prices for schematics downwards. People kept calling out 0.23 because it was a moment where NQ made a massive mistake, and they paid the price in losing a huge number of the player base. 

 

This change just feels out of place in DU because it is essentially a partial copy of the way blueprints are handled in EVE but the rest of the industry system is entirely different, so it really is like NQ is hammering a cube through a triangle shaped hole here.

 

Just like the forced and illogical choices made to limit construct max speeds, this is overthinking and missing the actual point while easier and better solutions are very easy to see (as has been presented in this thread by several different people as alternatives). I do feel that the pattern that is emerging is that some in NQ have design idea which do not fit the overal vision of the game itself and are driven by motivation other than making the game more playable/enjoyable. The reasoning and explanation NQ is giving us for these changes just do not match up with how it plays out.

 

 

It all makes the game feel very grindy and bland, not helped by the still terrible UI/UX design. This is not doing DU any favors.

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I have been running the FTUE with the new schematics and its a huge improvement. The groupings make it easier to produce indy elements without switching schematics. The low cost outlay, no schematics for parts and no travel for schematics makes progression much easier.

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On 7/11/2022 at 4:49 PM, NQ-Nyota said:

Hey everyone, please use this thread to discuss the announcement made about Schematics here. Thank you!

 

Hello here is my personal feedback on the industry changes (and a retrospective of the evolution of the changes).
 

- Who I am ?
I've been playing since the Alpha phases. I have always played in a group of 10 to 20 active members.
 

My history with the industry on Dual Universe:
 

Alpha location:
Alone and with time constraints of access to the game I had been able to build a good number of machines (it was perhaps already too much at that time). We have gone from a very limited nanocraft production capacity to an unlimited production capacity and in very large quantities. At the time we were not aware of the problems that this would cause later.
 

Beginning of Beta phases:
I managed micro factories on distant planets at the beginning, I mainly left the hand to another player to build the mega factory without schematics of our organization.
With hindsight, it was a huge waste of time and resources because the whole thing was far from optimized, but it worked and that was the main thing.
With thousands of machines for a group as small as ours (20 active players), we began to understand that this was going to lead to problems down the road.
I also took care of setting up specific lines to supply equipment to players who weren't in the industry.
 

Added schematics 0.23:
This addition was a great thing for our group of players. I personally redid our new and second totally automated industry with the drawings we are committed to producing very quickly up to item T4.
 

Merger and move:
After the massive player departure, we merged with another group of players.
I handed over to another player who built our new industry on our new base.
One-time purchase schematics don't limit us, the factory has grown and grown and grown until it caught up to the one we had before 0.23.
We were fewer in number and had a bigger factory (and growing steadily). There too we could see that this was going irremediably to problems.
 

Update of this week:
Our small group of players welcomed the change with relief. We know that for the sustainability of the game it was no longer possible to continue as before.

However, some balancing may be necessary:
 

- Overall high tier items may be too easy to access. But I don't think increasing the price in quanta or locking them behind talent points is a good idea. Perhaps it will be necessary to play more on the difficulties in obtaining supplies of T3/T4/T5?
 

- With the decrease in the price of blueprints, industry factories are really too cheap.
The advanced and the rare cost almost nothing to produce.
 

- Some things seem strange regarding the number of schematics needed to start a production when you have talents that reduce crafting times.
 

- Items seem out of box:
Why does the Expanded basic container XL schema cost as much as the basic container XL?
The light scheme does not seem too expensive given the usefulness of the object?
 

- Items of smaller sizes seem harmed compared to the largest. The price of the schematic quickly reaches half the craft price for certain items from XS to M, while it is only a few % of the L version.
Also I don't think it's a good thing to increase/decrease the price of the schematics. But maybe think about implementing a system of cost / energy capacity to avoid that the best alternative is always the biggest item.
 

- The progression curve is totally suppressed. It's very easy to get access to everything now, we expect the big dreagnought L in PvP in less than a month.
It is more than urgent to implement PvP balancing before the wipe and the release.
 

- You have to do a few things for the plasmas, it's not normal for an XS weapon to cost as much as an L weapon in quantity...
 

=> Overall, the objectives seem to have been achieved, the big solo industrialists will no longer be able to kill the game on their own. And players will be able to very (too?) easily produce everything from Tier 1 to Tier 5. This puts an end to the whole gaming experience post 0.23.
But beware, we are going to have a release as fast as during the Beta launch. If you think you can save time on development to make new additions, you will have very little time.

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7 hours ago, Msoul said:

1. Its tedious to have to constantly refill schematics copies on industry units.

For larger scale industry, certainly. For smal scale ones not so much, for incidental DIY use it's perfectly fine and an improvement over the previous system as it removes the need to fly around and interact with bots on the market.

 

 

7 hours ago, Msoul said:

2. This places a soft limit on how many things a single player can produce at once.

  • Thereby placing an emphasis on group play or using alt accounts to further production goals
  • Thereby creating a relatively stagnant endgame for industry players (Note: conflicts with "the factory must grow" mentality)

Not really, it takes a few days for any one person to get the schematics they need for incidental builds. It is specialized and dedicated industry gameplay that gets killed by this change, which may well be the intent NQ actually has.

 

The more I look at this, the more it feels like a wolf in sheep's clothing in that regard

 

 

7 hours ago, Msoul said:

3. The justification for this change is not clear enough and the intended outcome is difficult to comprehend

 

Agreed, NQ's messaging on this is both vague and contradictory in several ways. Not that this is new.

 

 

7 hours ago, Msoul said:

4. Schematic prices/copy-times do not align with current production rates and will lead to price corrections.

Absolutely. And IMO that is intentional

 

 

7 hours ago, Msoul said:

5. Lore wise, this change implies that Aphelia has substantial control over Noveans whereas an emphasis on self-autonomy is preferred. Additionally the nanocrafter not requiring schematics could use some elaboration.

The messaging in nanocrafter that schematics are required is just bad UI design. While an easy fix, it's also typical for NQ

 

The "everything is player made/controlled" idea has been abandoned years ago. NQ's "hand-off" promise is long since retracted and NQ actively forces what they believe is how the game should be player (as they have literally said they are doing on a number of occasions)

 

 

7 hours ago, Msoul said:

6. Generic schematics based on element tiers feels different and there are some conceptual size discrepancies like large detectors that add confusion.

The new schematic system pretty much goes back to the original industry idea we had in Alpha. It also is clearly a partial copy of how EVE industry works while it ignores that the overall mechanic is very different, so it tries to make it do something it's not designed to do. 

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26 minutes ago, Palis Airuta said:

I have been running the FTUE with the new schematics and its a huge improvement. The groupings make it easier to produce indy elements without switching schematics. The low cost outlay, no schematics for parts and no travel for schematics makes progression much easier.

This is true and IMO it is what NQ is trying to actually do (while at the same time selling it differently). 

 

This design is NOT supposed to support large scale industry but drive small scale, self-sufficient industry. for which it works very well. Takes a few days to get the schematics to make what you need. For solo and small group playstyles, especially for T1 and T2 stuff it's cheaper and more convenient that using markets.

 

This will become quickly apparent once the wipe happens and this new mechanics is very suitable for new players to build their own stuff and get off the starter planet.

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18 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

Regardless of server load/balancing issues being uses as an excuse for changes, the main problem still remains.

There is hardly any fun way to make quanta in this game. Everything is a chore. Mining is a chore, missions is a chore, industry has been turned into a chore.. and so on. So unlike when grinding in other MMO's, there is no sense of achievement or progression. Just mindless tedium repeating the same tasks over and over. And that is just bad game design, no matter how you look at it.

 

I don't lose hope.

It's never been easier for NQ to add something a little fun:
- They have single-use schematics
- They know how to spawn NQ PvE ships

=> Spawn PvE NQ ships with some schematics in the containers. Force people to shoot them to destroy and loot them.

And here you have just created a game area where people will come out with weapons to go and collect loot.
And potentially meet other armed players who are there for the same reason.

 

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13 minutes ago, Knight-Sevy said:

 

I don't lose hope.

It's never been easier for NQ to add something a little fun:
- They have single-use schematics
- They know how to spawn NQ PvE ships

=> Spawn PvE NQ ships with some schematics in the containers. Force people to shoot them to destroy and loot them.

And here you have just created a game area where people will come out with weapons to go and collect loot.
And potentially meet other armed players who are there for the same reason.

 

Let me get this straight....you really think that with the new Schematic system you'll get more players into a PvP room than before?
How should I imagine it, once a month a PvP battle is called between the PvP organisations or pirates, the rest of the month is then worked towards that everyone has also earned ship and ammunition for it?

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12 minutes ago, Zarcata said:

Let me get this straight....you really think that with the new Schematic system you'll get more players into a PvP room than before?
How should I imagine it, once a month a PvP battle is called between the PvP organisations or pirates, the rest of the month is then worked towards that everyone has also earned ship and ammunition for it?

 

If schematics are lootable in ships that can be found in the PvP zone, either near planets or in predefined zones with a few SUs. Yes there will be interaction.

I'm not expecting massive fleet battles there. Just small clashes which should be the basis of the PvP in game.

And even if no human player is found, well I will have at least shot some stuff, taken out my ship and used up fuel and ammunition.
And would not have returned with empty pockets.

 

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10 hours ago, Mncdk1 said:

 

I disagree with this part. Deckard was very clear about the intention. Reduce server cost.

So in turn, NQ continues down a path that leads to more players leaving to manage costs. This is a no-win strategy. 

 

Net: NQ keeps flushing the toilet over and over.

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1 hour ago, Knight-Sevy said:

 

If schematics are lootable in ships that can be found in the PvP zone, either near planets or in predefined zones with a few SUs. Yes there will be interaction.

I'm not expecting massive fleet battles there. Just small clashes which should be the basis of the PvP in game.

And even if no human player is found, well I will have at least shot some stuff, taken out my ship and used up fuel and ammunition.
And would not have returned with empty pockets.

 

This also introduced a game loop too. Imagine that. 

 

Problem is NQ only focuses on mechanics and engine. They don't understand game theory and design/development.

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1 hour ago, Knight-Sevy said:

If schematics are lootable in ships that can be found in the PvP zone, either near planets or in predefined zones with a few SUs.


You really have great expectations. I see these plunders that they imagine differently. It will be more like the wrecks that hardly anyone was looking for, because it's just nonsensical to put time and resources into it to get less with it. I bet they get less looted from their ships then the cost would be high if they had done those schematics themselves.
But well, if you have fun with it, have fun.
It still lacks content for others who are not so easily impressed by it.

 

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2 minutes ago, Zarcata said:


You really have great expectations. I see these plunders that they imagine differently. It will be more like the wrecks that hardly anyone was looking for, because it's just nonsensical to put time and resources into it to get less with it. I bet they get less looted from their ships then the cost would be high if they had done those schematics themselves.
But well, if you have fun with it, have fun.
It still lacks content for others who are not so easily impressed by it.

 

The game is a ship building game.

Ultimately, to motivate me to build more ships, I need a goal to use them.

Even keeping the same principle as wrecks, but making a ship appear that is not a wreck but something that has voxels, a little CCS and a shield. + schemas in a container.

Seems less unrealistic to me than having NPCs shoot me and fly into the system or that sort of thing.

Perhaps the hardest part will be to put lifeless broken items so that players don't loot too much stuff on the ships, but stay focused on the schematics.

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I would love to provide you some balanced feedback.  Soon as you tell me you are not wiping my work, or you start paying me to beta test your game, I will hop in and collect some balanced feed back.

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I have a small industry, so I'm OK with the new schematic mechanics, I will still produce about same the ammount of stuff as before.

However, the task of manually loading schematics into dozens of industry units is an unnecessary waste of time. A more efficient way of feeding schematics would be appreciated. Perhaps feeding could be done by a container unit linked to multiple industry units that consume the same kind of schematics.

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1 hour ago, DarkEvader said:

I have a small industry, so I'm OK with the new schematic mechanics, I will still produce about same the ammount of stuff as before.

However, the task of manually loading schematics into dozens of industry units is an unnecessary waste of time. A more efficient way of feeding schematics would be appreciated. Perhaps feeding could be done by a container unit linked to multiple industry units that consume the same kind of schematics.

 

So you are only ok with things that don't effect you personally.  As long as it's not bad for you, A ok.

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2 hours ago, DarkEvader said:

Perhaps feeding could be done by a container unit linked to multiple industry units that consume the same kind of schematics.

 

How about the ability to link any number of containers to the core, and allow factories to pull from the core of the construct they are on (no link), that would reduce the massive amount of links not to mention extra containers and transfer units and so on.

It would also be more in line with what EvE does so NQ should like that.

Edited by Kurosawa
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